Industry sees biggest decline in nine years

According to the NPD, US games industry sales suffered a fourth consecutive month of year-over-year declines in June.

Combined hardware, software and accessories revenues totalled $1.17 billion, down 31 per cent compared to last June, representing the greatest year-over-year monthly decline since September 2000. Sales in the three categories dropped 38 per cent, 29 per cent and 22 per cent respectively, according to figures supplied by the NPD Group.

Earlier this week analysts had forecast a 20-23 per cent drop in software revenues.

"The video games industry realised a significant decline when compared to June 2008," noted NPD analyst Anita Fraizer. "The first half of the year has been tough largely due to comparisons against a stellar first half performance last year, but still, this level of decline is certainly going to cause some pain and reflection in the industry.

"This is one of the first months where I think the impact of the economy is clearly reflected in the sales numbers. While the aggregate of content may not be as strong as what we saw in the first half of last year, and while the consumer base willing to spend dollars on hardware at the current price points may be thinning, the size of the decline could also point to consumers deferring limited discretionary spending until a big event (must-have new title, hardware price cut) compels them to spend."

The negative sales results mean year-to-date industry revenues are down 12 per cent compared to the same point in 2008, but Frazier suggested it is still possible that a strong back-half performance could see annual sales match or even surpass last year's record total.

"Of course, that could be put further at risk if more highly anticipated titles move out of 2009 into 2010 or later," she added.

In recent weeks Take-Two has shifted the release of a number of high profile titles - including BioShock 2 - from 2009 to 2010, while Activision similarly delayed the launch of Singularity.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=219748

I think it's understandable. Due to the state of the economy, most people have money only for the most important things. Video games are a nice to have, but when there's no money to pay the bills; who's gonna spend $60.00 US DLS in games.
I used to buy between one to two new games a month. Now I've been buying one every 2 months.